Standard 70% Dark Chocolate

Synopsis
Our standard 70% unflavoured dark chocolate recipe. We use this recipe as the basis for all our single origin dark chocolate bars. This recipe can be tweaked in order to get the best flavour from a particular origin.
Author
Dom Ramsey
Version
1.01
License
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
Short URL
xtc.tc/101
Last Updated
15 October 2018

Ingredients

  • 62% Roasted cocoa nibs
  • 8% Cocoa butter
  • 29.6% Cane Sugar
  • 0.4% Sunflower Lecithin

Technical Information

  • Roast: Standard (20 minutes @ 120°C)
  • Grind / Conch time:  Standard (24 hours for 3kg Premier grinders, 72 hours for 30kg CocoaTown melangers)

Method

  1. Sort and roast beans.
  2. After cooling, break and winnow.
  3. Slowly add nibs to heated melanger.
  4. Add cocoa butter. This can be added in parallel with the cocoa nibs to help speed the process.
  5. When nibs and cocoa butter are flowing freely, slowly add the sugar. For larger batches, this can be done on the second day of the 72 hour grind.
  6. Allow to grind / conch for prescribed time.
  7. One hour before the end of the cycle, add the lecithin.
  8. Pour into containers and allow to set.
  9. Temper as per the dark chocolate settings of your tempering machine.

Notes

When using melangers to produce chocolate from nibs, we often find that viscosity is an issue, hence the relatively high cocoa butter content in this recipe. Don’t be afraid to go even higher (up to 12%) if the viscosity of the chocolate is higher than desired, but also feel free to reduce it if the finished chocolate is flowing readily.

You can either reduce the nib content or the sugar content to make room for more cocoa butter, but note that changing the sugar content will affect the overall cocoa content percentage, whereas adjusting the nibs and cocoa butter will keep the overall cocoa content ratio the same.

We like to use Sunflower Lecithin in our dark chocolate as this can also have a significant impact on viscosity and make moulding much easier. We use it in preference to Soy Lecithin which some people have allergies to.  Again, if your chocolate flows readily you may want to omit this entirely and increase the nib content.

We find ageing the chocolate can have a significant beneficial effect on the final flavour of single origin chocolates, particularly those with high acidity. Normally this would be done after grinding and before tempering. Simply set the chocolate aside for 2-4 weeks before tempering and packaging.

License

Creative Commons Licence
Standard 70% Dark Chocolate by XTC Chocolate is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://xtc.tc/101.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://xtcchocolate.com/licensing/.